


How to comfort a sister who's crying herself to sleep

by Gazyrlezon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:00:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin">Exactly what it says on the tin</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to comfort a sister who's crying herself to sleep

The night was dark, the day was done, and the Amazon Fire Box still refused to let me watch Steven Moffat’s _Jekyll_. Well, not exactly _refused_ , but it told me I’d have to pay for it despite the Prime-Account-thing registered in the box, which I really didn’t want. Also, it was shortly after eleven o’ clock, and I figured I might as well go to bed. 

So I stood up, shut the television set down - well, just plugged it out and left whatever problems that may cause to itself when it next started up. Someone in someone’s marketing department had for some reason thought it might be a good idea to remove that little button that said _off_ , so there was no other way to really shut anything down. 

At least the thing never complained when anyone interrupted its power supply, so that was that. 

My smartphone’s battery also needed reloading, I remembered, but found I’d left it upstairs in my bedroom sometime during the day. Well. A task for tomorrow, then. 

Turned the light of, tried to find my way in total darkness, nearly ran into the bathroom door. Luckily it had its own switch for its own light, letting me see again once I stepped inside, to brush my teeth. 

In the mirror my reflection looked at me with a face that screamed _you really need_ _a shower, you know that?_

Well, now I knew. A shower stood right next to me, but I’d learned long ago that taking a shower in a sleeping house at night would only serve to be rather annoying, and that in a rather violent manner. After I’d removed my spectacles and shirt the towel next to me (no idea which one it was - it just happened to kind of be there) soon found itself soaked with water and soap, while I tried to used it to get as clean as it would let me, victorian style. That was much more effective than most people thought it was, or at least I’d read that in a book somewhere. 

After a while, I figured the book had probably been right. 

It still wasn’t as good as a shower, but there really was no point in waking everybody up. 

I was just thinking about whether or not to put the shirt back on - no, I decided, it was sweaty and I was going to bed anyway, so I might as well spare me the trouble \- and had my hand over the light-switch when suddenly my ears decided to tell me that my sister was crying. 

Crying. Actually, crying, low sobs drifting over from her room. 

Wondering how I hadn’t heard before - it’s not like there’s much of a distance between her room and the bathroom, in fact, they’re right next to each other - I left the light as it was, so I wouldn’t run into her bed. For I moment I was unsure about my shirt, then decided to put it back on, and entered her room, only barely managing to not run into the sports-bar-thingy that she’d put in the doorframe. 

And indeed, she lay there, awake, and crying softly, the way people cry when they’ve done that for a while. 

_What should I do?_

I figured it probably wouldn’t hurt to just try and ask her, if she’d speak with me, what was wrong, what had caused her to lie awake for so long. She’d gone to bed hours before me, the way sisters tend to do when they’re half your age. 

“I can’t sleep”, she said, in that tone little sisters tend to use when they’re genuine, as opposed to the more well-known one they use when they aren’t. 

Reaching out, I placed my hand on her shoulder, trying to give what comfort I could. 

“Why not?”, I asked, wondering whether she was just too excited of her athletics training on the morrow. 

“Don’t know. I just can’t sleep. I tried, but …” 

“Oh, come here”, I told her, and hugged her. Well, as well as you can hug someone who’s lying on a loft bed that’s half as high as you are yourself. It worked surprisingly well, I noticed idly while I let her sob on my shoulder. 

We broke apart a few moments later, and while I idly tried to wipe her tears away from her cheeks I told her, as gently as I could, to try and get some sleep. 

“I can’t”, she repeated, “I’ve been trying for hours, and it doesn’t work.” 

“Well, you could try again. And if it doesn’t work, just stop, try and get _some_ rest, even if you’re not sleeping, that’ll help a bit. I think. Well, you’ll probably just fall asleep eventually. I mean, come one, you normally sleep till ten in the morning - well not actually till ten, more like nine … okay, half past eight, perhaps, but you’ll manage eventually.” 

I stopped for a moment, and wondered what exactly I’d just said. Well, I was always more the dashing-about type, especially when tired. 

“Actually, I really have no idea what I’m talking about. I think. Ahm …” 

“What?” 

“That stuff - that I just said. I think I’m mostly making it up as a go. Well, I’m good at that, ain’t I, just talking about things that I don’t actually know anything about, I think I do quite well with that.” 

She gave something that might have been a snort, or a laugh, or just a groan at my stupidity. I really couldn’t tell, what with me just barely able to see her shape in what little light found its way from the bathroom to where we were standing. More importantly, her sobs had stopped. 

_Well, that’s probably what you’d call “not a complete failure”._

“Actually”, I continued while she laid back down, “maybe I’ll try to get up early enough tomorrow to wave you goodbye for a change. Oh, I did that today already, didn’t I?”, I corrected myself, remembering that I’d stood out on the street in my socks while our mother’d driven her away, to the athletics training. 

“Okay then, a bit earlier than that, maybe early enough for breakfast or something. Oh, wait, than you’d have to actually eat something there. Or well, turn up at all” - she was quite at war with our parents about breakfasts - “Oh, never mind.” 

I’d hoped she might laugh, but of course she didn’t. Well, it _was_ the middle of the night, at least for her. Actually that wasn’t true at all, of course, true middle of the night was normally somewhere around 1 o’ clock in the night or even later, just because someone had meddled with time, or rather, with the time on the clocks. 

_I think I’m a bit tired. Oh well._

I covered her in her blanket again, noticed that I didn’t see her very well, and finally realized that I’d forgotten my spectacles in the bathroom. 

_Yep, definitely tired._

“Actually”, I began again, which inevitably sent part of my mind wondering why I tend to start these things with _actually_ , “actually, I just forgot my spectacles in the bathroom, think I’m ready for bed as well. Come on, you’ll manage. Good night.” 

“Night.” 

After returning to the bathroom and placing the spectacles back on my nose, I quickly leaned through the door again, shouted - well, silently shouted, which is a lot less contradictory than it sounds - “Got them”, hoped that whatever sound I’d just heard was a laugh and went upstairs to my own bedroom. The sound definitely wasn’t a sob, though, so that’s that.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is just something that popped into my head the other night, and refused to leave again, so I figured I might as well just write it down and while I'm at it, get some practice writing first-person.


End file.
